ADVENTURER James Locke has braved gruelling conditions to become one of the first explorers to retrace the steps of a Swedish nobleman.

Mr Locke faced freezing temperatures as low as -40C for the special journey from Lima to Mora in central Sweden.

The 61-year-old followed the route taken by Gustavus Vasa, who led the Swedes to victory against the oppressing Danes and Norwegians in 1528.

Mr Locke, an information and computer technology and contracts manager at Cranbourne Business and Enterprise College, Basingstoke, was headhunted for the expedition by Swedish researcher Carl-Henrik Berg.

Mr Locke said: "We found his Sweet Well as recorded by his chronicler of the time.

"We visited the place where he fell in a river and nearly died of cold - the story of the birth of the Swedish nation was nearly very short-lived indeed.

"We visited farmhouses where he is known to have visited while the Danes hunted him.

"We are probably the first to walk the whole route in similar conditions to what Gustavus himself would have faced."

For the challenge Mr Locke and Mr Berg donned modern-day snowshoes, pulled pulks - mini sledges - and slept inside self-dug snow holes.

The very deep snow, combined with the weight of the equipment the pair were carrying, meant they slowed down to just 1km an hour towards the end - but they still managed to complete the trek within the scheduled six days.

Mr Locke said: "I'm going to take a snow mobile next time - I'm not pulling one of those things again."

The trek coincided with an annual extreme 90km ski race, which saw up to 30,000 entrants commemorate Gustavus Vasa's return to lead his people to freedom.

Although covering the same distance as Mr Locke and Mr Berg, the race took a different route.

The trek was the latest in a long line of expeditions undertaken by Mr Locke, having visited the Arctic Circle as well as warmer climates such as Libya, Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria.

First published: Monday, March 14, 2005